I found this image from five years ago while looking for something completely unrelated. In the first week of August 2020, Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) was fading in the western evening sky over the Bristol Head ridgeline near Creede. At the time this picture was taken it was passing in front of two globular clusters in the constellation Coma Berenices. As a bonus, a meteor appeared in this 30 sec exposure.
There is an immense range of distance scales in this image. The meteor is an atmospheric phenomenon, probably within 100 mi or less. The comet is a Solar-System object. At that time it was about 86 million miles distant. The globular clusters behind it are Galactic landmarks, about 58,000 light years distant.
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| Comet C/2020 F3. 06 Aug 2020. Sony A7 + 50mm f/1.8 lens. ISO 1600, 30 s. |
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| A tighter crop with the globular clusters circled. |
That same evening I also took an image of the summer Milky Way, closely centered on the galactic core. Same camera, lens, and exposure.
With the distracting stars blurred, it is much easier to appreciate the immense clouds of dust and gas that obscure our visible-light view of the galactic center.
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